SSTI Digest

Drug prices in the United States and pharmaceutical profits are considered excessive by many, including officials of the Trump Administration. The fact that the firms charge significantly less for the same medications in other countries than here has many wondering why and what can be done about it. One proposed solution has been to use the federal “march-in” rights allowed by the 45-year-old Bayh-Dole Act to force a change. The proposal has sent both excitement and chills throughout the communities involved in healthcare price containment and intellectual property rights of federally supported R&D. To help everyone have a common grounding on the issue, the General Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report regarding the draft guidance under consideration. 

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wants the federal government to receive a return on funding awarded for R&D, innovation and economic development. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority has financed a dozen various technology innovation initiatives with the same expectation for the state’s money. Here’s how NJEDA says it's working.

As we come to the end of February, more than half of the governors have either delivered their 2026 State of the State, their Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Budget addresses, or a combination of the two, laying out their priorities for the coming year. With forecasted revenues for many states tightening, many governors and lawmakers, with a few exceptions, offer cautious or constrained funding priorities and proposed initiatives. 

Governors not on the ballot this fall have used the addresses to speak to their accomplishments while in office. Many state leaders have spoken to prioritizing the implications of recent federal changes in tax statute and regulations impacting state contributions to Medicaid, food support programs, and education. In addition, governors have given much of their speech time to security and affordability issues, including childcare, housing, and energy costs. 

It may not always be rocket science, but that doesn’t mean companies with scientific or technologically sophisticated innovations have an easy time raising capital. New academic research might lead one to wonder: Should TBED policy makers provide training for angel and VC investors that improves their understanding of critical tech - or continue to focus primarily on funding gaps and teaching founders to speak the language of VCs?

It has been five long, dark months for the nation’s small innovation-focused businesses and the regional innovation systems that rely on them for their strongest startups and future leaders, but a ray of light appeared Wednesday afternoon as a compromise was announced on the stalled reauthorization of the federal SBIR/STTR programs. And, if passed as written, we won’t have to go through this again until September 2031, which shifts future debate until an off-election year.

SSTI understands the main sticking points for the various committee leaders have been the innovation community’s concerns about companies receiving multiple SBIR/STTR awards, how to define excessive numbers of awards for a single company, and what to do about those firms, known as “mills.” Concerns regarding foreign ownership or influence on the small business and cybersecurity risks were resolved more easily across chambers of Congress and political parties. 

Personal income has nearly quadrupled in constant dollars over the past 56 years, from approximately $791 billion in 1969 to $2.9 trillion by 2024 in inflation-adjusted 1969 USD ($24.9 trillion in current dollars, increasing an average of seven percent each year), reveals SSTI analysis of the full breadth of newly released U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data. Standardized by population, growth is more conservative, with an average annual current dollar increase of 5%; in 1969, per capita personal income (PCPI) was just $3,931, but by 2024 had risen to $8,100 when adjusted for inflation to 1969 USD ($69,273 in current dollars).

Regional innovation systems across the country can learn from the journeys of the EDA's designated Tech Hubs, regardless of your region’s competitive advantage. The twelve hubs continue to make progress, with consortia launching new programs and advancing key initiatives. The following highlights recent news from a selection of hubs. SSTI supports the Tech Hub community through its Technology-Based Economic Development Community of Practice. 

In the 30 years SSTI has been in existence and the 85 years of concerted federal focus on scientific discover and innovation, the priority of public-private R&D investment has been overwhelmingly nonpartisan. A recent report from the Pew Research Center confirms the cold-war, global competitiveness arguments for U.S science and technology still hold sway across political parties, but fissures in who should pay and who should work on science and tech efforts are beginning to grow. 

Over the past three years, public perception of the importance of global scientific and innovation leadership grew in importance according to the latest from Pew Research: the number of those who take this stand is up five percentage points since 2023, climbing to 91% of respondents. Partisan differences begin to emerge when Pew delved deeper. 

New research confirms what TBED practitioners already understand: there’s no single formula for building successful innovation-driven systems. That’s one of the reasons SSTI advises policy makers to focus on the strengths and needs of your region’s innovation system rather than how much your neighbors are spending. The study’s findings about the role of knowledge spillovers, however, offer useful insight into the characteristics that matter most for improving outcomes in your region.  

Vacant storefronts and empty downtown office buildings aren’t the only ways the pandemic-accelerated, technology-stimulated move to remote work has negatively impacted community cohesiveness, commitment to place, and economic opportunity resulting from aggregation. According to a newly released analysis of university campuses, the disconnection and under-utilization problem extends deeper into regions than many may realize. 

Looking at more than 100 institutions of higher education, Occuspace found that the average utilization of campus building space dropped 8 points to 45% in one year. Declining enrollment, aging facilities, deferred maintenance and desire for online courses will likely extend and expand the issues, the authors point out. Overcapacity extends across most types of academic buildings: 

Many institutions of higher education spend millions of dollars each year on R&D, with 37 having spent over $1 billion in FY 2024. These expenditures are made to drive innovation and create new technologies, methodologies, and more. Past SSTI coverage of the new FY 2024 Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey data release has explored the geographic spread of HERD expenditures at the state level. This edition of Useful Stats will explore HERD survey data at the institutional level for the 50 largest institutions by R&D expenditures and the sources of funds to allow them to conduct their work.

Campus entrepreneurship programs can lead to decades-long collaborations between academia and industry. Students may learn how to do their very first pitch deck. Or make a poster presentation. Or stand in front of a group of investors. And then go on to found a successful company (or two, or three) and create jobs for people in the area.